Las Vegas Detectives Blog

These cards, which enable you to pay for calls upfront, are very popular with US residents with families in Central and South America — though, of course, anyone can buy and use them.

Their appeal often is that they seem to offer substantial discounts on regular call charges and can be used on public phones without the need to keep pumping in coins.

But, hidden in the fine print may be all sorts of perfectly legal restrictions, surcharges and even automatic recharging if bought with a credit card. Or the cards may simply not deliver the number of minutes they claim to offer.

Of course, there are many prepaid phone cards, especially from the big telecom firms, that do deliver the savings and minutes they claim. But to people less familiar with the US marketplace, it’s easy to fall for what appears to be the best price deal but is really a scam.

The non-profit Hispanic Institute, for instance, has been reported as saying the average calling card delivers only 60 percent of the minutes promised — cheating consumers out of $1 million a day.

Best advice is to read the fine print on a card, monitor and be alert to how much time you’re actually getting and, if in doubt, stick with the big providers with established reputations.

A quick-and-easy list of important things you can do to cut the risk of becoming a scam victim:

1. Surf safely: Follow the recent lead from France and Germany and stop using Internet Explorer as your browser. Firefox is much safer. Install Internet security software and keep it up to date.

2. Be wary about downloading software from unfamiliar websites or using peer-to-peer sites that swap and share files. These might install malware on your PC. Same goes for pop-up windows that offer to scan your computer or claim it is infected by a virus. Again, they will load malware to steal information.

3. Use a different password for every site and change them frequently.

4. Never reply to spam, click on links or attachments from people you don’t know or respond to emails offering you money as a prize, an advance payment or an inheritance.

5. Always check and confirm the identity of individuals and websites you are dealing with, both online and offline. Don’t give them any personal or confidential information until you have both done that and confirmed that they do need it and will protect it.

6. Be wary of dealing with companies, websites and charitable organizations you’ve never heard of.

7. Finally, be a skeptic about anything and everything that might cost you money and report any suspicions you have or scams you’ve experienced to the police and the Federal Trade Commission.

When it comes time to pay the bill for the meal you just ate in a restaurant and seeing your credit card disappear into the hands of a restaurant server is always a worry.

What’s to stop them from noting down the number plus the crucial security code from the back?

Answer: Not a lot. It’s one of the risks we credit card users have to live with. The best we can do is to keep a vigilant eye on our accounts to ensure they’re not being abused.

But here’s a new, sneaky credit card trick that you can do something about: Credit card swapping.

In a couple of recent incidents, diners who paid their restaurant check with a card were given back the wrong one.

The cards they got turned out to be expired, while the originals disappeared and were maxed out by the thief.

It’s not clear whether the crook was a waiter on a one-night stand-in or if someone else did a back-stage swap.

The crime wasn’t discovered until some days later when the owners tried to use what they thought were their credit cards.

Action: Preventing this scam is a matter of commonsense. Check your card when it’s returned to you.